Thursday, June 9, 2011

BRITISH STORES RIPPING US OFF?

First of all, apologies for the gap in my blogging! I have had a very surreal two weeks with 2 trips to the UK in one week and my eldest daughter, Carla leaving for Australia this week. I have regained my energy and am working on putting my emotional self back together at the moment! Anyway – hence the silence.

Said daughter, Carla is a travel agent and decided that we should have some quality mother and daughter bonding time before she emigrated and so booked us an overnight trip to London. We had a great two days – full of laughter, sore feet, a bit of shopping, nice food, some wine and Dirty Dancing. It was wonderful.

While on the shopping part, I visited Evans on Oxford Street where, with Carla’s encouragement I purchased me a dress (I don’t generally do dresses – this was a major event). The price tag listed the UK sterling price as £49.00. As Evans also has shops here in Ireland it also listed the euro price of (wait for it) €75! Yes – that’s right €75!

Anyway having decided to purchase I went to the till and paid with my Laser (debit) card. The assistant asked if I would like to pay in euro or sterling. “How much is it then in Euro?” I asked. €60 was the reply. Needless to say I paid in euro at the till.

But it goes to prove (again – I know this is not new news) that we are being ripped off here in Ireland by British stores. How on earth can an extra €15 on the price of a garment be justified? I am sure that our neighbours in Northern Ireland pay the same price as in London.

When I chatted about this with Carla she told me that some of her friends go into the British Stores and try on clothes for size. Then go home and buy them online as it’s cheaper! Madness – especially in the current economic climate when we need to protect Irish jobs.

I will send Evans a link to this post and seek an explanation. I will let you know of the outcome!

9 comments:

We are being ripped off, I think as consumers we are traditionally timid, since the tags have started to show euro & sterling prices its become more obvious - maybe its time to do something.. (this is the part when I run out of ideas!) Look forward to hearing what the response from Evans will be.

Thanks a million for raising this issue again - I know I tend to forget how much we're being ripped off by British stores. Doesn't one of the British supermarkets refer to us as 'Treasure Ireland' in their internal communiqués?!

I'd be interested to see what Evans say to you - if they respond. I would imagine that they will cite, among others; shipping costs, duty fees, price of labour in Ireland.

I'm appalled at this and feel that I should apologise on behalf of the UK... even though it's nothing to do with me really. Good to hear you had mother daughter bonding time. I love times like that with my daughter.

Me again!In August 2009 I engaged in a pointless email exchange with Clarks UK based Customer Services dept. I'd bought school shoes for DD and DS which were priced at a premium over UK prices of 35% and 53%. There were three emails from them, each of them more annoying than the previous one, and plenty of patronising "we're sorry you were disappointed by our pricing" and "we hope you will continue to buy our shoes". I was seething, and copied my letters and the replies to Pricewatch but alas, it went nowhere. All that changed was my blood pressure.Bernie is right - most of the UK stores with branches here either tear off the UK price, or put a super-adhesive sticker over it with EU pricing.